There was a time when “The Hunger Games” was at the top of the world. The original novel, released in 2008, propelled the now-infamous “young adult” genre into fame. The book series spawned an even more successful film series, becoming a box-office success and a cultural phenomenon. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, “No Hard Feelings”) was the most famous fictional character in the world, fanposts about Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin, “Book of Love”) ruled Tumblr and the movie rebellion’s three-finger salute found its way to real protests.
Every millennial or Gen Z-er is at least familiar with the series’s setup: An oppressive government forces 24 kids from the “districts” to fight to the death in an arena while the wealthy citizens of the Capitol watch it like a reality TV show. With the intrigue behind this dystopian setting and the general craze for spin-offs, “The Hunger Games” series was bound to see a spin-off eventually. Suzanne Collins met this demand with her 2020 novel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Set about 50 years before the original film, “Ballad” follows the origin story of the series’s antagonist Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth, “Benediction”). Snow isn’t the powerful dictator seen in the original movies but rather an ambitious young student at the Capitol Academy trying to make a name for himself. Plus, he’s hot now, too.
The early Hunger Games isn’t a grandiose event like we see in the original trilogy. Here, it’s a scaled-down event — just 24 kids beating each other to death in a schlubby little arena. Snow and his fellow academy mates are given an assignment: They must each mentor a tribute from this year’s Hunger Games. They are told to focus on making the audience care about them, turning the Hunger Games into a spectacle on the level of Roman gladiatorial battles. Snow is assigned District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, “West Side Story”), who instantly charms audiences with her singing abilities. Zegler plays Lucy Gray with a fiery personality that reminds audiences of Katniss without completely ripping off what made Katniss a cultural icon. Her relationship with Snow blurs the line between genuine and fake. Both seem to care for each other but ultimately use each other for their own ends. It also adds a tension that prequels often need. Audiences already know that Snow will survive and become Panem’s president, but Lucy Gray is a character whose survival audiences can worry about since she doesn’t appear in the original series. She makes Snow a more interesting character, instead of being solely a wooden character defined by his ambition. Their relationship adds heart to the games beyond seeing if Snow gets rewarded in school.
Together, along with his friend and classmate — the wealthy Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera, “West Side Story”) — Snow earns favor with the head game maker, Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis, “Air”), for introducing many of the game’s commonplace tricks, like allowing audience members to “sponsor” tributes they support by sending them supplies. The audience also sees many other familiar elements of the games, including TV host Lucky Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman, “Asteroid City”), who brings a 1950s aesthetic and dry humor that adds a lot of levity to the film.
The strength of “Ballad” is the inspiration it draws from the original “Hunger Games” series. What made the original series stand out from the lesser dystopian YA stories attempting to replicate its success was its strong thematic message on the predatory realities of modern media culture. While “The Hunger Games” did yield to the “government bad, teenager good” sentiment like many of these stories, what differentiated it was that it spoke from a place of genuine feeling. Placed within the toxic celebrity culture of the 2000s, seeing the film’s bloodthirsty audience create and tear down teenage idols for their entertainment was a message that resonated with many who grew up seeing the stars of their generation endlessly harassed by MTV. “Ballad” builds upon this strong thematic underpinning by showing how the games transform from a bloodbath to an entertainment special, paralleling the real-world rise of celebrity culture. “Ballad” displays how these children have to project fake personalities and expose their deep-seated traumas to get audiences on their side, which sounds just as much like “American Idol” as it does “The Hunger Games.” This film could have chosen to focus on the superficial changes the games undergo: the arena transforming from being smaller than an average NBA arena to massive jungles, or the technology that gives the original series a vague sci-fi aesthetic. Instead, it intentionally focuses on the creation of the spectacle, which allows “Ballad” to borrow from and enhance the original series.
The competence of the film’s first half makes it even more unfortunate that the games end and there is an entire hour left. The last act of the film follows Snow serving in the military in District 12, leading to his transformation from TikTok fancam subject to the leader of a military junta. Snow is not a particularly interesting character; his most captivating moments come either at the service of his relationship with Lucy Gray or his transformation of the games, so an entire section focused on him without these elements is boring. Having this section set after the conclusion of the games does the film a disservice. In both “The Hunger Games” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” the actual games are the most interesting elements of the films, a trend that “Ballad” continues. Maybe there is an ironic commentary to be had here in audiences finding visceral entertainment in an act of violence meant to serve as societal critique, but let’s be honest, the violence is what we’re all here to watch. Once the games are over, the film is left with a world devoid of much of its uniqueness, as we watch a character embark on a bland descent into villainy. This entire section drags on endlessly and detracts from the enjoyment of the film’s first half, but it does a competent enough job of wrapping up all of the characters while setting the stage for the original series.
Even while the last hour of the film needlessly drags on, “Ballad” is a solid action film that pays homage to the original series in a satisfying way. In an era where it seems like big franchise blockbusters are losing all sense of craftsmanship, “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” is a breath of fresh air as a prequel that respects its source material.
Daily Arts Contributor William Cooper can be reached at wcoop@umich.edu.